Kim
Beazley went as far as to
condemn media coverage of the
alleged massacre in Jenin last
April [2002] during an
address to Jewish leaders in
Perth.

Sydney, February 20, 2003

Labor
Pains

Dan Goldberg

SIMON Crean is puzzled.
The Labor Party leader cannot understand
the degree of the discontent within the
Jewish community created by members of his
own backbench who have attacked Israel in
the past few months.

First came the debate on Iraq in
Federal Parliament last September when
Sydney MP Tanya Plibersek described
Israel as "a rogue state" and Ariel
Sharon as "a war criminal".

Then came the private member's motion
on Israel, moved by Federal MP for Fowler
Julia Irwin and seconded by
Plibersek, which degenerated into a bitter
war of words between government and
Opposition MPs.

Such was the consternation of the
leadership of the community that Executive
Council of Australian Jewry president
Jeremy Jones - who had referred to
the "extraordinary venom" towards Israel
by some Labor MPs during the Iraq debate -
dispatched a letter to every Federal MP
prior to the November 11 debate in the
House of Representatives.

The letter pointed to "internal
contradictions which appear to be based on
an ignorance of Middle East history and
recent diplomatic moves", and attacked the
motion for failing to refer to the
"terrorist atrocities, which have been
aimed not only at murdering civilians, but
also at harming any short-term prospects
for peace".

Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs
Council executive director Dr Colin
Rubenstein went one step further. He
told SBS on the evening after the debate
of the concern "across the board in the
Australian Jewish community that this
drift [in the Labor Party away from
its traditional support for Israel]
should be firmly arrested".

Crean, to his credit, did intervene to
ensure that Federal Member for Melbourne
Ports Michael Danby, who was
originally excluded as one of Labor's
three spokespeople, represented Labor.

But the debacle within Labor prior to
the debate was nothing short of a
mud-slinging contest between Danby - who
had attempted to quash the motion - and
Labor's Chief Whip Janice Crosio,
Irwin, Plibersek et al.

The irony of the debate itself was that
the acrimony traded across the floor was
largely personal, not political. Plibersek
called the Liberals' Chris Pyne,
chairman of the Australia-Israel
Parliamentary Group, "a disgrace"; Pyne
retorted by calling Crosio "a thug"; and
Crosio conceded that her relationship with
Danby was "poisonous" - all under the
pretext of a motion on Israel.

Unsurprisingly, the brouhaha was picked
up by the media. In a blistering attack on
Danby, SMH columnist Alan Ramsey
(October 26) wrote that the only Jewish
Federal MP was "unarguably the Australian
Parliament's most unambiguous and
insidious defender of the Israeli
Government".

Glenn Milne, chief political
correspondent for the Seven Network,
argued in the Australian that "the ground
Crean cedes within the Australian Jewish
community will be occupied by the likes of
[Liberal MP Tony] Smith and
Pyne. And the way Labor is going about it,
that ground will be taken without a
fight."

But concern over Labor's backbench is
not confined to community leaders or the
media. Even card-carrying Labor supporters
are questioning why Crean has not quelled
what appears to be an anti-Israel backlash
on his backbench.

Take former Hawke Government minister
Barry Cohen. So enraged was he by
the statements attributed to Plibersek
during the Iraq debate that he wrote to
Crean on September 27. "At the moment I
can't imagine any Jew with any feelings
toward the State of Israel supporting the
Australian Labor Party."

Cohen, who accepts that there is room
for legitimate criticism of Israel within
Labor, charged Crean with heading a party
that has two "distinct and separate"
policies on Israel: "The one expressed by
you and your foreign affairs spokesman
Kevin Rudd, and the anti-Israel
tirades of the aforementioned MPs."

Crean responded by reassuring Cohen
that "there had been no change to Labor's
longstanding and deeply held commitment to
the State of Israel".

Although he may not have raised the ire
of the community to the degree that
Gough Whitlam did in the 1970s,
Crean has raised eyebrows among a
community which, given the intifada, is
extra sensitive to any attacks on
Israel.

Yet he remains perplexed, especially by
the fracas over the private member's
motion: "I am puzzled at the extent to
which the reading of the tea leaves is so
narrowly focused on what, after all, was a
private member's motion."

Offering three lines of defence, Crean
stressed that the Israel debate was a
private member's motion which did not
require a vote.

"If they did require a determination of
the parliament, clearly I would have voted
against it and spoken against it."

Second, he believes in the democratic
right of dissent, but firmly maintains
that it does not alter Labor Party policy,
which supports Israel's right to exist
within secure, recognised borders, while
supporting the right of the Palestinians
to a state.

In addition, he cites former deputy
prime minister Tim Fischer, who has
criticised Israel in the past, as an
example of the government allowing dissent
within its ranks.

"Did the same sort of campaign get
raised with John Howard when Tim
Fisher spoke out against Israel?"

Although he acknowledges that the
government did eventually distance itself
from Fischer's remarks, Crean stressed
that Fischer was deputy PM at the time,
whereas Irwin and Plibersek are
backbenchers.

Third, Crean, who has visited Israel
three times, is adamant that however
critical his backbench may be, it does not
alter Labor's "rock-solid" support for
Israel. "I'm making it categoric that our
policy has not shifted, and it won't under
me.

"My support for Israel has been
longstanding; it's unequivocal and it's
unshakeable."

THE Jewish community has a long
relationship with the Labor Party dating
back to Ben Chifley's and Dr Bert Evatts'
support for the establishment of the State
of Israel.

But Whitlam damaged the relationship
when, in 1974, he incurred the wrath of
the Jewish leadership when he was asked
why he had failed to condemn the surprise
Arab attack on Israel on Yom Kippur
1973.

Whitlam allegedly responded: "You
people should realise that there is a
large Christian Arab community in this
country."

If Whitlam burned the bridges with the
community in the 1970s, Bob Hawke rebuilt
them when he was elected in 1983. In fact,
according to a member of the pro-Israel
lobby, Hawke's foreign minister, Bill
Hayden, was as pro-Israel as Hawke
himself.

Paul Keating, however, did not
employ the same
sensitivity
as Hawke, and his foreign minister,
Gareth Evans, put the community
offside when he commented on Israel's
human-rights contraventions.

By contrast,
Kim Beazley had studied the
Middle East and was staunchly
pro-Israel. He went as far as to
condemn media coverage of the
alleged
massacre in Jenin last April during an
address to Jewish leaders in Perth.

But Crean's troubled relationship with
the community is only one side of the
coin; the other side - John Howard's
Liberal Party - may be equally responsible
for making Crean's rapprochement that much
harder.

As one senior Jewish commentator put
it: "I do not recall an Australian prime
minister who has been as completely
unequivocal in his support for
Israel."

Not only has Howard defended Israel
time and again, but Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer and Treasurer
Peter Costello have also been
consistent supporters.

Unsurprisingly, Howard's own backbench
has seized on Labor's internal division,
with Pyne claiming the Israel debate broke
"the 54-year bipartisan position that's
existed between Labor and Liberal over the
State of Israel" -- a claim flatly
rejected by Crean.

Smarting from accusations in the media
that his errant backbench is a sign of his
own political weakness, Crean remains
adamant that such allegations are
unfounded.

"I should not have to wear the innuendo
and the intellectual dishonesty that that
is me softening my position."

Nonetheless, there are voices within
the community questioning why Crean has
apparently given the green light to
anti-Israel voices from his backbench.

While he accepts that some of his NSW
backbenchers "have constituencies that are
geared to that [Arab] point of
view", he is quick to defend the dissent
in the name of democracy.

But perhaps the most damning attack
launched by any Labor MP was not against
Israel, but a scathing broadside by Irwin
against the "Jewish lobby".

Just weeks after the Israel motion,
Irwin, in a grievance debate on December
9, charged the Jewish lobby with trying to
kybosh the debate, accusing it of a "code
of silence".

Quoting an email from an unnamed
commentator warning her that "you have
taken on the most implacable, arrogant,
cruel and powerful lobby in the country",
Irwin said she felt "the taboo on
discussing this issue has been broken" and
vowed to continue the debate.

Crean did not see fit to publicly
distance himself from Irwin's comments.
Instead, he said he spoke to her
privately: "I went to Julia Irwin and said
that was an inappropriate statement to
make and you shouldn't make it again."

While Crean conceded he was offended by
the comment - "I think the reference to
the Jewish lobby is offensive because
that's the typecasting of everyone" - he
didn't think it appropriate to renounce it
in public.

Although the relationship between the
Jewish community and the Labor Party has
not been plain sailing, Labor's
leadership, including Crean, has been
largely pro-Israel.

And although Crean may have lost the
faith of some, there are many
dyed-in-the-wool supporters who - despite
the government's position on Israel, and
because of its stance on Iraq, refugees
and Aborigines - would not conceive of
switching sides.

As a pro-Israel lobbyist told the
Bulletin in an August 1992 story on the
relationship between the party and the
Jews during the Keating Government: "For
me, not voting Labor would be like eating
ham."